Monday, October 22, 2007

My staff and I are on Nias Island for a week to conduct topographical surveys of 8 school locations spread out over the island. In the past two days, we finished north Nias. One of the locations is in a small town near the northern cape, and one of the most inaccessible spots on the island.

The drive from our office in the capital city (or should I say, town) of Grung Sitoli was three long hours on a severally pot holed dirt road crossing two collapsed bridges. Later, we past a beach where the driver pointed out how the surf moved out 1000ft since the two massive earthquakes two years ago. Is this geological uplifting?

The town of Dahewa felt like a frontier town with its muddy streets and decaying wooden buildings. This town has seen a lot, it was the closest point to the 8.6 Nias Earthquake in March 2005. And it's not that much further from the epicenter of the 9.4 earthquake which triggered the Asian Tsunami three month earlier.

The existing school here is flattened. All that is left is a torn up foundation and a small pile of rumble at the far end in which the school kids like to climb at recess. Classes are currently being held in "phase 2" temperately school buildings, constructed out of small precast concrete columns bolted together and covered with thin plywood. Phase 1 housed the classes in tents, which still stands today. You can still make out the baby blue UNICEF logo on the frayed and weathered tarps.

Nias welcomed me with a bumpy plane ride in a sky filled with dark turbulent clouds. The small propeller plane dropped and then shot up then flung side to side, at times I swore the plane flew sideways for a brief moment. Rain upon rain upon rain. It doesn’t pour here, it thunders rain.

About Me

I'm a structural engineer born and raised in California's Silicon Valley (San Francisco Bay Area). I've worked in structural and seismic engineering from California, Indonesia, Afghanistan, New Zealand and finally Costa Rica. Currently, my wife and I are living in San José working on a USAID/OFDA project preparing the city and central government on responding to a major urban earthquake.